Koudelka

"After playing Shadow Hearts..."

After playing the sequel of Koudelka - Shadow Hearts, I decide to change this review. I gradually enter game community, and my opinions about games have also changed with time. I bought Shadow Hearts all because of Koudelka's advantages. But after playing it, I have found that Koudelka was not as bad as I expected, and it really had something ''bad''. It seems that I have given a too bad score to Koudelka when it is still one of my favourite games. So I think I should make a change : 7/10 - my fixed rating for Koudelka now.

Gameplay 9/10
The game is very good, better than I expected. I have had an entirely different sense while playing it. Being a RPG, but Koudelka is mixed with survival horror around the haunted monastery mansion. Having no background music to increase the horror level, it still makes you somehow fear in the first time playing through. I can't explain what I truly feel about it. Although Koudelka's horror is not as perfect as Silent Hill's, not as tough as Resident Evil's, I still feel that it's the most interesting horror ever. The battle system in Koudelka is still simple, but at least it gives you some interest that you can increase the characters' stats yourself. The mansion's design in Koudelka is no doubt incredible and truly ancient, that I want to enter it soon. Another thing of the game that may attract you is that you'll face events along your way. Some of them are just random, but they give you more curiosity and interest to continue the game, like the accident picture in Keeper's room, or the ghost of the dead girl who seems to have no relation with the main story. I think that's so enough for Koudelka to have a good gameplay. It's so good for the first masterpiece of Sacnoth.

Story 9/10
A good storyline ! The tragedy about the owner of the monastery and his crazy love. He loves his wife too much that he wants to be with her forever, even she has died. And then, the sequel of that love is the most terrible event. Finally, they both die which remains the monastery full of demon. A perfect tragedy with magic and mystery ! I like this kind of story. Maybe I'm odd, but my favourite storyline kind must be mysterious, interesting and simple. I see that many people like the stories with a bunch of confusing plots. It's better to have plots. But for me, it's more important at the quality of the story. A story which has many plots but low quality does no good. Koudelka's storyline has a high quality of interests and mysteries, which are my standard.

Characters 9/10
Honestly, the characters in Koudelka look better than the ones in Shadow Hearts. While the characters in Shadow Hearts seem to be completely Japanese comic style, the ones in Koudelka prove their realistic characteristics and their design is NOT Japanese style. Moreover, they look like real people in FMVs, in a PSX game. Most of the games are often affected by the beautiful art of Japanese style. But after Resident Evil, Koudelka is one of the only games which is not in that list. If you have played Dead or Alice or some other games, you'll see that the Western characters are drawn NOT differently from Japanese ones. Maybe they have blonde hair, blue eyes, etc, but they can't hide the Japanese-styled faces. But the characters in Koudelka are not like that. Edward is truly American with his figure, and James is truly a British as he is. And we can see that by their designs.

Enemies 10/10
I have added this enemy critic in Shadow Hearts, and now I must do the same with Koudelka, because Sacnoth's creations are so admirable. I can't believe that their imaginations are various and big enough to create a lot of monsters, with unique, outlandish, disgusting and frustrating figures. This is made even better than Shadow Hearts. I think the monsters' design of Sacnoth may be the most perfect design I have ever seen, and no other games can reach that.

Graphic 7/10
I must agree with a player that the graphic in Koudelka is pretty bad. The colours of interactive objects (including the characters) are not real. If you carefully observe, you can see clearly that each character is combined from many art pieces, creating a hard moving object. Real and good graphic is the graphic which can hide the disadvantages of the revealing art pieces, and make you see that the character/object is completely smooth. But Koudelka didn't succeed at that. The dark background in battle fields somehow proves the disadvantage of graphic. Maybe the creators of Koudelka were not able to make impressive graphic, so then the dark background is their solution to reduce the number of objects in battle. Also because the characters and objects are combined from so many pieces, that reduces the speed of the game. The speed in battle is extremely slow. In ordinary state, it takes a moment to change screen. Generally, the graphic of this game is still so weak. But at least, I confirm that the FMV scenes are very lively and realistic, somewhat better than Shadow Hearts. Although the FMVs in Shadow Hearts are also high-qualified, they are still interactive, colourful than normal and blurless. But the FMVs of Koudelka is better-moderated and more realistic, especially the opening film, when Koudelka rides the horse to the monastery and enters the mansion.

Sounds 7/10
Last time I did criticize this part so strictly. So now I correct that the sound of this game is not bad. Although the background music is missing, at least the sounds of footsteps and impacting objects are lively and realistic enough. But they need to be more various. But the battle music of Koudelka may be the best, with the impressive melody.

Battle system 7/10
The characters' status is changeable by our decisions is the advantage of Koudelka's battle system. Each time you level up, your privilege is to select what attributes should be built up. Besides, Koudelka has a huge collection of weapons, along with many elements brought. You can find them in certain locations or random battles. Some weapons are unique. But I confirm that the characters' actions are so poor and slow. The casting-spell action is taken so long and repeated like crazy people. Then, another trouble is that your weapon is easily broken and then you lose all extra points which you have decided for each character with that weapon. Another thing troubles me is the status calculation. Sometimes they are not as correct as themselves, especially the Vit (Vitality). ''Vitality'', in common RPGs, is the attribute showing the characters' longevity against physical attacks. Vit and HP (Hit Points) are separated. But in Koudelka, Vit decides the HP, so that you can't determine how strong the character can suffer the physical attacks. It may increase the HP, but how do you know the damage he/she takes from the hits ? Also the same thing with Piety which decides your MP.

Speed 3/10
Very slow. When there are so many characters, the game spends time to remember each target. Some monsters cause status changes as Paralysis that makes the slower because of the continually hits of enemies. It's all because the objects are combined from so many pieces (as I said in ''Graphic'' part) which it takes so long to read all of them each time the screen changes.

Replayability 5/10
I don't feel to be fond of it very much when replaying the game. Although I have played many times, I never play completely each time. Koudelka doesn't as many as secrets and sidequests as it must do. If the game has more secrets and better speed, I may not feel hesitating to play it again and again.

Conclusion
To buy or to rent ?
The answer is free. To rent, it's only enough for you to know what this game is. But if you aren't appreciate to it, you will bore easily. To buy, you can enjoy it every time you can. I have bought it but I'm still happy of its great storyline. I think that this game is anyway better than Shadow Hearts. It shows Sacnoth's unique style of RPGs which the other experienced companies have not got yet. Shadow Hearts seems to have lost most of the unique characteristics to become a common RPG which is not very different from other RPGs. When telling about Shadow Hearts' battle system, people is reminded of The Legend of Dragoon created by Sony Computer Entertainment. But if I say Koudelka, whom will you be reminded of ? Of course, only them - Sacnoth.

Score
Gameplay : 9/10
Story : 9/10
Characters : 9/10
Enemies : 10/10
Graphic : 7/10
Sound : 7/10
Battle System : 7/10
Speed : 3/10
Replay Value : 5/10
Overall : 7/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 07/03/01, Updated 02/04/03